5/17/2023 0 Comments Potential sentience![]() Our shared sentience appears to have pre-evolved our differentiation into Homo sapiens and other sentient species, and is possibly also the result of convergent evolution across multiple taxa. Animals are similar to humans as regards being sentient (in a way that we believe we are dissimilar to natural phenomena such as rocks and meteorological events). Sentience allows us to recognise similarities to our nature within nature more widely, particularly when we see ourselves as living ‘in’ and ‘as’ nature (following ). Nature is therefore not a neutral and passive “blank canvas” for human action, but one which actively and intentionally responds to human interventions (unless prevented from doing so by other human interventions). More positively, sentience is part of nature’s forces that maintain itself, and sentient animals’ psychological resilience is part of the environment’s overall resilience. These welfare effects can, in turn affect human health. Secondly, animals’ motivations affect animals’ behavioural responses to human impacts such as human presence or environmental disruption, which in turn can affect their health, flourishing or survival as well as affect how human–animal interactions play out. Causing disproportionate suffering in sentient animals is an indicator that our relationship with nature is far from harmonious. Firstly, the feelings of sentient animals, in particular affective states such as suffering, as responses to their environments, are potential symptoms of the effect of human actions and anthropogenic changes. Sentience as Part of NatureĪnimal sentience is an important part of how environments are affected by humans, and how they respond. Understanding Sentience as Part of Nature 2.1. The paper’s conclusions are therefore informative for the achievement of those agendas, and thus to the strategies of the UN General Assembly, the UN Environment Programme, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Organisation for Animal Health, the World Health Organisation and the One Health High Level Expert Panel. It draws on concepts from the agendas on Harmony with Nature, One Health, and Biological Diversity, including the recent Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) report on the Diverse Values of Nature, which was written to comprehensively identify values beyond predominant instrumental values of nature that are consistent with living in harmony with nature, but which omitted any consideration of values related to animal sentience. The second part considers the importance of sentience in relation to recognising the values of nature, measuring value, leveraging those values in transformation, and embedding them in decision-making. The first part considers sentience as part of nature and of prevalent narratives and worldviews concerning nature. ![]() This paper considers the potential significance of animal sentience in our relationships with nature.
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